I’m waiting for my Nando’s take-away so I thought of dropping this post after watching this at my local IMAX.
Gekijōban Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is a prequel to the current anime/manga franchise written by Akutami Gege. This prequel was also published as a manga on Shōnen Jump as volume 0. I admit that whilst I did start watching the anime (before buying the tankobon volumes), I had put it on hold with the usual too much animu too little time, aka Kimetsu’s Yuukaku-hen.
The beauty with the JJK0 film you could get away by not even watching/reading the original franchise, but having watched a pitiful six episodes, there was enough in the film to make me recognise chatacters or understand the basic context of the franchise’s lore.
The premise of the story revolves around Okkotsu Yūta, a 16-year old lad who has a curse that closely follows him, appearing whenever he is under threat. One such incident nearly (alluded later on in the film) killed his class bullies after which he was picked up by Gojō Satoru (with a white mask this time) and enrolled into the Tōkyō Toritsu Jujutsu Kōtō Senmon Gakkō where Yūta would then be introduced to his three year one classmates – Zenin Maki, Inumaki Toge and Panda. What exactly is Yūta’s curse? His departed sweetheart, Rika, whose noroi form whose power level is off the charts, attracting the attention of the tale’s antagonist.
The film is surprisingly engaging, taking into context how MAPPA adapted the manga. Notwithstanding that I am a HanaKana (Rika’s seiyuu) simp, I could sense how powerful the relationship is between Yūta and Rika. The film isn’t long enough to delve into Yūta’s character but that is not the point of JJK0 as you will see him later again. At one point, Yūta reminded me so much of Genji in EVA – until I found out they share the same seiyuu, Ogata Megumi. The fight scenes slap hard which I felt just as jawdroppingly awesome as the sakuga in the recent ones in ufotable’s KnY Yuukaku-hen, bearing in mind MAPPA employed a more 2-D approach to the visuals. Like KnY’s Mugen ressha-hen, JJK0 is canon as there is an actual manga, and the story is set about a year before season 1. As for music, look out for King Gnu‘s 一途 and 逆夢 as the OP and ED, respectively.
JJK0 is worth the watch, despite that there was just myself and one other person in that IMAX hall (South Yorkshire weebs aren’t that many, and that this was a Sunday morning).
